Practical Notes on IQC Quality on a printed circuit board is not created by a final inspection. It is built into the process at three separate gates: incoming material, work in progress and finished product. In the industry these are IQC, IPQC and FQC, and the reason they are separate…

Ordering a PCB Prototype: Checks Before You Send A prototype order is a small transaction with an outsized influence on the project. The files that are sent, the questions that are asked and the checks that are performed before the panel is built decide whether the first boards arrive usable…

Practical Notes on Haptic Feedback PCB Haptic feedback has moved from a simple vibration motor to multi-actuator systems that reproduce texture and direction. In a gaming controller or handheld device, that means several actuators driven independently, in a package that must remain light and comfortable to hold. The board design…

FPC Copper Foil: Rolled Annealed vs Electrodeposited Copper foil is the conductor in every flexible circuit, and the way that foil was made decides how the finished part behaves when it is bent. Two production routes dominate: rolling and annealing a cast ingot, and electrodepositing copper onto a rotating drum.…

Practical Notes on VIPPO VIPPO is one of those manufacturing terms that appears on a stackup drawing without explanation and then decides whether a dense BGA can be assembled reliably. The acronym stands for via-in-pad plated over, and it describes a specific sequence: a via is placed inside a component…

Practical Notes on Audio Amplifier PCBA An audio amplifier PCBA is a board where the measurements look simple and the listening experience is unforgiving. A switching amplifier can post excellent distortion figures and still hum audibly, because the hum comes from a ground loop or from a supply coupling that…

PCB Silkscreen vs Solder Mask: Two Layers, Two Jobs Two layers sit on top of the copper on a finished board, and they are often confused because both are printed. The solder mask is a functional dielectric coating that protects the copper and controls where solder may go. The silkscreen…

Practical Notes on Powertrain PCB A powertrain PCB lives in the harshest environment a production vehicle offers. It sits near combustion heat or on an inverter, it sees vibration from the driveline, it cycles between ambient and operating temperature every time the vehicle is used, and it must survive for…

Energy Storage PCBA Cost: The Technical Drivers Behind the Price An energy storage PCBA costs more than a control board of the same size, and the reason is not the component count. It is the current. A storage module moves tens or hundreds of amps through the same board that…

Practical Notes on Bluetooth Speaker PCB A Bluetooth speaker PCB combines a radio, a digital processor, a class D audio amplifier and a battery charging circuit on one small board, usually inside an enclosure that also contains a driver magnet and a lithium cell. It is a demanding layout problem…